LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 23377, 21 September 1939, Page 13

LONDON TOPICS

MEMORABLE SCENE IN HOUSE PREMIER’S DIGNITY AND VIGOUR [From Odk Correspondent.] [Bv Air Mail.] LONDON, August 31. As one who was present at the fateful meeting of Parliament last September, when the Premier announced the Munich meeting, I was tremendously impressed by the vastly different jflood—commented upon by the Liberal Opposition speaker—when the House or Commons met for the “interim discussion on August 29. There was no hint of a war-mongering spirit, but the uneasiness which marked last September’s sitting had been replaced by an almost militant determination to see this wretched business through, conle what may. The Premier’s speech was the firmest and most resolute, as well as being the most grave, that he has ever made in Parliament and the House reacted, as it does always m crisis, with a show of unanimity as striking as it was expected. Mr Chamberlain has stood up to this period of unparalleled strain with dignity and ■vigour. To this may be added a h'Rh tribute' to the determination of the Opposition spokesmen. Britain stands fast indeed. BOMBSHELL DIPLOMACY, The . Russo-German pact took the whole world completely by surprise. Not a hint of it escaped anywhere until Berlin burst the diplomatic bombshell. It caused a more profound general sensation, even amongst people not usually interested in big politics, than any similar event since 1914. xsobody in London seemed able to talk about anything else. But the man in 1 the street perhaps at first hardly appreciated the full startling innuendo of this lightning move. Literally in a night the whole facade of . European politics has, at all events outwardly, Undergone a sensational transformation. This sudden pact, which has seemingly been secretly negotiated in Moscow by the übiquitous von Papen of notorious war-time repute, would appear to shatter at one blow'both the Franco-llussian Treaty and the AntiComintern Axis. In Pans the Boulevardians are facetiously asking whether the 7 Soviet has now joined the fatten It is weltpolitik on the Alice in Wonderland model with a vengeance. QUEER BIRD. Presumably von Papen’s Moscow coup has rehabilitated him in Nazi circles. He has been under a cloud, chiefly owing to his failure, with liberal funds at his disposal, to upset the Inglb-Turkish entente, but even at the time of the Roehm purge be was suspect. - As military attache m Washington during the war his_ activities ■outran his discretion. Documents " found in his despatch 'case led- not only to his expulsion from the United ■ States of America, but to the arrest of a large number of dangerous secret German agents here and in America. Seven years ago von Papen, wbo holds army tank as captain, became the German Chancellor / but his Catholic faith was against him. and von Schhecher succeeded him. He conducted the Vatican negotiations for a Concordat that . gave Hitler_Centre Part? - after Whielf‘Hitler chssqlyed Party He also organised the baar plebiscite After Dollfuss’s murder, von Cn was sent as Ambassador to POPULAR MISCONCEPTION. fine hears a great deal of uninformed and some if it unfortunately is reflected in Fleet Street’s woefully iminstoucterf stunt Press about Italy s role in the last war. There is a preva ' lent idea that, as a partner m the pre war Triple Alliance, Italy, when the pinch came, rather badly let down her German and Austrian allies in that . treaty. Actually, as is well known to everybody conversant with diplomatic affairs, there was an express secret clause in the Triple Alliance by which Italy was exonerated in advance of any obligation to engage in t war which would bring her in conflict with Great Britain. Thus any suggestion that in 1914 Italy double-crossed Germany ana Austria is entirely unfounded and in- ■ suiting. It was this express proviso that gave particular urgency in Berlin to the hopeful belief that we should not join in with France and Russia in 1914 Italy’s attitude now is one of the vital factors in the international situortion. _ QUEER PEOPLE. These crises’ bring some odd people to Downing Street. One day those of ns ■ who were waiting beneath the Foieign Office arch—meeting place of polltical correspondents and! best known -as “pneumonia corner” —had our attention caught by a young man who strode jiestlessly about the street during the morning, making inquiries about the time of the Cabinet meeting. Next afternoon ho reappeared, and while the door of No. 10 was open he walked in and actually made his way almost to f a Cabinet room. Having been thrown out, he was ordered away, only to return a few moments later to ask if his photb had been taken for the newspapers. An hour later he .was back knocking at the door of No, 10 and seeking to push his way in. At this point the police lost their patience, the last glimpse I had of the intruder was when he was being carried into a Black Maria en route for the police station, ©n the whole, however, this crisis has been attended by fewer scenes and demonstrations than was the case last year. RUNNING THE AIR MINISTRY. Sir Kingsley Wood! personally is not tSe most impressive of Ministers, but of the four responsible for defence he is given credit as the most effective in “'producing the goods.” Unlike some of his predecessors, he makes no pretence to technical knowledge, nor does he make any great endeavour to acquire it. except when necessary. His policy is that of all great administrators. He decides on what his experts advise, and then sees to it that what is decided is given the earliest effect. Progress and speeding up are secured by regular reports on the position of all sanctioned projects. If the progress made seßins insufficient, inquiry is made, and all gftstacles removed. Sir Kingsley s lieutenants thus are given a stimulating feeling of responsibility, and have the full weight of the Ministry behind them in pushing on with their schemes. So the Air Ministry becomes the taxpayer’s white-haired boy, although its chief knows not a single mathematical formula concerned with its thousand-and-one instruments and machines. O.C, WORMWOOD SCRUBS. Major A. C. H. Benke. the new governor of Wormwood Scrubs gaol, is a soldier who fought with some distinc-

lion in the last war and won the D.S.O. as well as the M.C. At the age of 23 he was appointed governor of Preston gaol, the youngest governor in the prison service, and he made quite a name for himself, in the underworld as well as in Howard Society circles, by his “ advanced ” ideas while governor of Walton gaol, Liverpool! Lawn tennis was included in the criminal amenities of that retreat. At Wormwood Scrubs Major Benke will find a regime quite after his own fancy. There is a bowling green laid with the best Solway turf, a club room that is always open, with a piano, stage, theatrical scenery, cards, and tennis tables, with, of course, radio and l newspapers. It was in this 'club room, over which warders exercise no supervision, that three prisoners planned and executed' an ambitions smuggling coup. “ The Scrubs ” is London’s short-sentence prison, now reserved for first offenders. CHIRRUP! The last thing anybody would expect is a plague of 1 crickets in a congested south-east London suburb. Yet that is what Lewisham is now experiencing, and in quite a serious form. Lewisham is the teeming area of mean streets, big cinemas, and blaring radio shops, with a busy street market superaddecl, adjoining once fashionable Blnckheath, where the Peninsula Generals lived, and where Picton House may still be viewed. Myriads of crickets, all tuning up like some tempestuous stringed orchestra, are invading Lewisham, getting into the most inconvenient places, including the open mouths of sleeping ratepayers, and generally making life a misery. The sleepers,, even if they awake choking with crickets in their throats, are almost to be envied. Normal persons cannot get any sleep owing to the cricket uproar. Residents blame a huge municipal refuse dump, and the agitated borough fathers have called in a Professor of pestology, the fire brigade, and special creosote sprinklers. But so far the crickets remain proverbially lively. Not long ago an up-river townlet had an invasion of wasps, but crickets raiding Lewisham is a new etomological development. BRIGADIER ASQUITH, Arthur Asquith, who has died in the early fifties as the result of war wounds, was the son of Lord Oxford who most resembled his illustrious father. Ho did not emulate, as his brothers have done, Lord Oxford’s brilliant Oxford record. But in personality and character, he was nearest to “ H.H.A.” of them all. More athletic than the rest, he shone as a Soccer footballer, anil, joining the Naval Division as a subaitern, with a group of brilliant youngsters like Rupert Brooke, Lister, Patrick Shaw Stewart, and i. b. Kelly, the great oarsman, he had risen to the rank of brigadier when the loss of a leg,, after being repeatedly wounded, put him finally out of action. He held two bars to a gallant D.S.O , a distinction very few soldiers achieved. As a parade ground officer he cud not shine, but as a front-line soldier he was a paladin. His personality-and bearing together with his proved competency in emergency, were an inspiration in anv hard-pressed sector. His pale face and. slim figure wore the aura pf intrepid chivalry. It is a tragedy that he will now never wear his father a mantle at Westminster, THE OXFORD MANfIER. , As a slight relief from the obsessing topic of the moment, I really must narrate a rural episode which has been told to me as authentic. A country parson recentlv wrote to his local yura*. council pointing out that some gipsies had been encamped on a field be ongmg to the rectory, and that when they departed elsewhere they left bAind a dead donkey. He suggested that the local authorities should take suitable action for the disposal of the corpse. In due course a letter came back from the council offices, coldly pointing out to him that, under such and such a by-law, the duty of burying the deceased donkey was legally imposed .on him as the owner for the time being of the field in which the body la>. To this the parson, whom one suspects without knowing of being a Balliol man, replied quite succinctly but effectively. Ho wrote stating that he fully realised the legal position., but that before taking any action himself be had thought it ‘only right to inform the- next-of-kin! ” Friendly rural relations between the rectory and the local authority are now temporarily suspended.